Arrogance at its worst.
Barry Maister is no fan of the Calgary voters who voted against having the 2026 Winter Olympics in their town. Who is Barry Maister and why doesn’t he like Calgary voters? Maister is a member of the International Olympic Committee and Maister, who is part of the New Zealand IOC delegation until the end of 2018, had this message. The IOC is going to continue to lose referendums because of an ignorant public. Maister probably has not noticed that Olympics referendums are losing because the IOC puts on its events that leave behind a massive amount of debt along with many buildings that seemingly are left to rot. There are numerous examples of taxpayers footing the bill for decades paying for structures with Montreal, Greece and Brazilian residents leading the way.
Maister unloaded on Calgary residents in an interview with the website Inside The Games. “In view of increasing global coordination of often uninformed public efforts to stop Games, it is likely this trend of bid rejections will continue to frustrate the IOC, This in spite of significant efforts of IOC to put the facts in front of the organizers, local authorities, and more recently the public. These facts include genuine efforts to show how a Games can enhance align with future city developments, and can be organized at a much lower cost than the public have been led to believe. If these are not convincing, transparent propositions with demonstrable legacies for the city, then we will continue to struggle to get genuine bidders for all Games.” The IOC has been able to convince political and business leaders about the importance of bringing the Olympics to town but voters are a much different story. The IOC has lost nine straight votes. The voters globally are informed and have decided the Olympic experience is too costly.
